Be concise.

This morning’s Twitter feed brought me a valuable tip from PRDaily (via UIE) about the hazards of circumlocution — or using five words to say something when just one will do. It’s especially problematic when you’re writing for the web, as people don’t read content on the web so much as scan it. Circumlocution is a bad habit I picked up in high school and college to make my often-short (I like to say “concise”) essays fit the assigned word count. If you’re writing for the web, take a moment after you finish to re-read what you’ve written. If you can find a way to cut your word count, then do it.